In the Way of Fate
by Tazlet
Summary: John reads his fate in a fortune cookie, and finds it between a reality and a dream.


Sleep was not to be had those first weeks—settling into new digs with the unfamiliar sound of Baker Street's traffic putting him on full alert. There was, in addition, the unfamiliar mattress with its unfamiliar set of lumps, and the new, and very unfamiliar, flatmate—Sherlock Holmes—definitely a cat of a different breed—a man with peculiar hobbies and annoying habits—pacing up and down, talking out loud, and conducting smelly research (But only, he had lied, when he didn't have a case to keep him occupied).

Of course, it might easily have been that first case.

_Sighting down the barrel, the kickback, and the smell of cordite…_

They'd had Chinese afterward at a dim sum place Sherlock knew that stayed open until two—one flight up the back, with red flocked wallpaper and tea lights flickering in small glass globes, and John's fortune, on a scrap of paper folded inside a stale wafer. _You will find your fate in_ _dreams. _Apparently, Sherlock had seen something in his face. He'd plucked the thing from John's fingers and subjected it to an interrogative eyebrow. That eyebrow was still primed to go off as he looked at John, and said, 'Do you believe it?'

'Do I believe what?' John had been irritated at the plucking.

'Fate. That events are predetermined?'

'That I was always going to follow you? Save your life?'

'If you will.'

'Hell, yeah! I never doubted for a moment that Murray was going to bring me out of Maiwand, instead of Capt. Peterson.'

Sherlock had opened his eyes, and his mouth, but John had already snatched the scrap back. 'Load of codswallop!' he'd said, and burned it in the tea light.

The next day had been rough. The two of them, essentially strangers, hadn't found their rhythm yet and kept starting for the loo at the same moment. Mrs. Hudson popped in to follow first one of them and then the other around the flat, rabbiting on about the 'raid' and her 'herbal soothers'. John had a session with Ella, talking about this new phase of his 'recovery,' and exploring how survivor's guilt, like a long departed lover, could still sneak up and cold-cock you from behind. Sherlock had gone in and given a statement, but then, that detective—Lestrade—happened to stop by in the evening; clearly the man smelt a lie, and was persistent.

John had gone to bed as soon as he decently could, but he lay there with nerves that were stretched on tenterhooks, torqueing every time a car honked, and twitching with every unfamiliar creak of the old house easing itself. He heard the door when Lestrade left. There was some thumping. Then quiet. Sherlock must have gone to bed. The clock read 1 a.m.. The clock had read 1 a.m. for the last three hours. The minutes were not advancing. (It had to be pure spite on the clock's part.) Finally, at the rumble of a passing lorry, he gave up, got up, and wandered down to the kitchen. Ella would have recommended a sleeping pill—the hyper-vigilance will get better she kept promising—but a cup of milk, hot from the microwave, with a slug of brandy in, would do the trick as well. John dosed it with enough to knock out an elephant, took a few sips and decided to carry it back to his room.

On the way through the sitting room he noticed something was different. Earlier in the day, he'd bluntly told Sherlock that it was as much as their lives were worth if he didn't move that 'chemistry set' of his out of the kitchen. Sherlock must have taken the hint, after all; now there was a cheap deal table in the corner where Sherlock, bundled in a quilted dressing gown, sat hunched over one of his odd bits, an old fashioned brass microscope, with his eye pressed to the ocular.

"How's it going?" It seemed polite to show an interest, at least; show he appreciated the effort. And how was it possible to see anything through, dark as it was in that corner with only a small oil lamp with a green glass shade to light the reflector...

"We've done it, Watson!" The lanky figure straightened abruptly. "I can safely say that Edward Clive Bunton will be keeping his appointment with the hangman next week!" Exuding a palpable air of satisfaction, Holmes turned toward John. An expression of surprise came over his face.

"Oh! I'm afraid I didn't hear you come in."

The statement was so self-evident that John didn't feel it warranted a verbal reply and merely saluted it with his coffee cup.

Sherlock's response was to narrow those grey eyes. "Who are you?"

"What do you mean, who am I? I'm your…"

The earth rocked on its foundation.

_Brilliant grey eyes, in a hawk-like countenance…_

"Wake up!"

The earth rocked again a_nd the image dissolved like mist on a spring morning._

John blinked, and was standing naked in the middle of the sitting room floor with hot liquid running over his wrist, dripping down his belly, spattering on the floor…. "What?!" Sherlock had him by a surprisingly strong, not to say painful, grip on his shoulders and was shaking him. "Stop that!"

"You're dreaming!"

Every light in the sitting room was lit, including the light in the base of the heavy white binocular microscope that was weighing down a new workbench in the corner. At least he hadn't imagined that part. What was odd though was the way that Sherlock was searching John's face. Curiousity, concern, and something else, were expressed in the fluid arabesques of those rococo features. (Admittedly, concern, and whatever that other thing was, were running a few good lengths behind curiousity).

"Why are you…?"

"You were sleepwalking!"

"I've never sleepwalked in my life!"

"No? You strolled in stark naked, fixed yourself a drink, ignored me when I asked if you were all right, and then stopped in the middle of the hall, turned around and started a conversation with the wallpaper. I had to give you a couple of good sharp shakes before you snapped out it."

John was outraged. "Never wake up a sleepwalker up doing that!"

"What was I supposed to do? If you'd gone downstairs, Mrs. Hudson would have had—"

"I don't sleepwalk!"

"Fine!" Sherlock removed his hands. Put them up in the air. Surrendered. "You don't sleepwalk. Nothing more to say."

"That's right! Nothing whatsoever!" John's cup was still a third full. He took a firmer grip on it and headed for the stairs. "Goodnight!"

"Goodnight."

He was two steps up when Sherlock said, "You've milk dribbling off your cobblers!"

"Oh... Bugger off!" Damned if he was reporting that one to Ella.

Curiously, he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, but thinking the whole thing over the next day he found it odd that he had recognized a perfect stranger in his dream as Sherlock. And been entirely certain, at the same time, that he'd never seen the man before. The man's features had been nothing like Sherlock's, not even remotely. John tried to recall the specifics but, as the details of even the most vivid dreams escape within moments of waking, it was impossible. He had only the haunting impression of a pair of grey eyes in a face as sharp as the arches of a Gothic cathedral.

Two days later, an old friend of Sherlock's, a banker, called for help; John blogged the case (only the names changed); cases began arriving at the door; they found their rhythm…

###

John lay drowsing on the sofa. They were home from the brutes and the wilds of Dartmoor, at last. A satisfactory end to a haunting case; neither of them the worse for wear, or poison gas…

He smiled at the dust motes dancing in the bars of late afternoon sun…write it up tomorrow, before Mycoft landed on them with the Official Secrets Act…

Odd how the shadows seemed to twist around the bars of light. They were giving the room an old-fashioned aspect…hints of things gone. Those pocket doors, for example, had to have been taken out a long, long time ago to open up the kitchen… an upholstered armchair…tufted green velvet with lacy antimacassars…a fringe along the bottom made of satin rope…a sideboard with a lamp on it…iridescent gold shades…a cluster of delicate lilies…

_Pretty,_ John thought.

It was beautiful.

_I'm having a flashback_ he realized with no special concern (At least these particular hallucinations weren't trying to bite him). _Or else the room is remembering..._

Either way, there was a round table with massive lion-paw feet digging its claws into a strange carpet. There was a tray with silver tea set on it and a man in a frock coat bending over to inhale the delicate fragrance wafting from the pot. John recognized those lean, hawk-like features.

"Holmes...?" he said. (Why such formality after weeks of John and Sherlock?)

Holmes looked up and smiled affectionately at him. "Ah, Watson," he said. "You're awake! I wouldn't have disturbed you for the world, but Mrs. Hudson has most comprehensively killed the fatted calf. Behold—" He whipped off a plate cover. "Fresh baked Bath buns!"

"In that case," John found himself murmuring. "I believe I could just manage a cup of tea."

Holmes poured out two cups and brought one to John, who pushed himself vertical to accept it. He intended to shift and make room for them both on the sofa, but before he could move Holmes was kneeling on the floor at his feet and, with no hesitation at all, had placed his head in John's lap.

"Perhaps a concert this evening?" The words came from his mouth with no volition on his part just as his hand reached out to stroke the sleek dark head, glistening with Macassar oil.

"Mmmm. No." Holmes closed his eyes and began to strop his cheek on the soft black wool…nudging.

It vaguely occurred to John that he'd put on a pair of brown cords that morning.

"Mrs. Ronalds is hosting a chamber music evening and Sir Arthur may…"

"No." Holmes let a sigh. "We've had some weeks of severe work, old friend. For one evening, I think, we might turn our thoughts to more interesting channels."

Whereupon, Holmes proceeded to bury his face in the fork of John's trousers—nuzzling, rubbing, pushing. John's heart gave a seismic lurch. His cock swelled with the soft bothering of Holmes' teeth, shaping him through the wool, urging him on, and the teacup John was holding, dancing a tarantella in the saucer became positively manic.

As if there could be any doubt of what Holmes meant by these particular attentions to that particular part of John's anatomy, Holmes began to undo the buttons.

"For God's sake," John groaned. "Let me set it down."

Without looking up, or pausing in undoing the last button, Holmes removed the teacup and tucked it under the edge of the sofa. John's cock sprang free. Holmes' mouth—hot, wet, and demanding John's entire attention—closed over it, and pleasure swept every other thought from his mind.

###

The springs, bounced, Sherlock shifted beneath him and went still.

"John?!"

"Mmmm...?" That the man slept on his front, gave John, kneeling over him, with a knee on either side, access to an ear.

"This isn't…" Sherlock made a funny little gulping noise. "Not your bed…!"

"I know."

"What are you doing?"

"Thought you prided yourself on your observational skills." John nosed the back of Sherlock's neck and began to work his way down. "'M kissin' you..." Kissing and tracing the knobs of spine with his tongue all the way down.

"There?" Sherlock hissed.

"And here" John took a bite, and made it better. "If you shift your legs, I can reach…"

"Tell me you're not sleepwalking."

"Not this time."

"Then let me turn."

John let him turn, and Sherlock's cock sprang up to meet his lips and fill his mouth with musk and salty flesh. He could feel Sherlock's hands in his hair…stroking his cheeks…as if he were being welcomed home after a long absence.


End file.
